


The Name of Life

by Deufos42



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: A Very, A lot - Freeform, Absolutely nothing is accurate here, Alternate Universe - Aliens, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Deal With It, Don't kill me if I take too long to update, Existential Angst, I actually studied some things very superficially to formulate this idea, I failed with you, I had a really good title but I lost it, I'm clearly with too many ideas, If I take some information from somewhere I'll leave the link to search on the notes, M/M, Not That Fluff, Sorry Bang Chan, a lot of dark humour because, bad sense of humour, cosmic horror ??? idk, m a y b e, thats me, very
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2019-12-18 13:29:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18250817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deufos42/pseuds/Deufos42
Summary: All he had was hope. It wasn't much; since he'd set his feet on the moon every little bit of his optimism seemed to have gotten lost with the parts of his ship through space. Woojin was absolutely sure that his life would end there and that no advance of human intelligence could save him. Maybe he just needed some help from outside Earth.





	1. Out of mind - Prologue

 

 

 

**A N N O 2078**

 

 

 

“ Logbook, February twenty-fourth, two thousand and seventy-eight, day 54.

 

Everything remains the same and I don't have any reasons to continue recording, but here I am. I have no hope of returning home anymore. Although the moon has become something completely different since the last visit we made to it, you will never know about. Space travel is still expensive and you would not send someone else here to have the same fate as me; at least, it's what I hope you won't do.

I don't like to think that the money spent on the Stay 4419 has been a complete waste, considering that the first forced landing has already left me trapped in this deserted area a little over a month ago. It's definitely a great way to start a terrestrial year, ironically out of the Earth. I don't have much more to think about, I have already accepted my destiny and now it doesn't seem so terrible to me anymore. I can still see you from here, everyone, without exception.

I have been thinking for some days that the purpose of my recordings is no longer to pass accurate information about the natural satellite in which I am. Maybe, if at some point it's worth taking the process back from where I left off, I hope you understand that all these files as a kind of talk of me to myself. Our species wasn't made for the loneliness in which I find myself much longer than I could expect. My sanity escapes through my fingers a little bit every second, my heart breaks into tiny pieces when I think I no longer have something that holds me alive other than the fear of death.

[ **…** ]

The food is running out. My body tries to consume as little as possible so it doesn't fade until my end, although it is doing nothing more than putting off the inevitable. I know I won't be in my forties, especially when this mission shouldn't extend for more than a few weeks. I'm sorry for all that I left behind, but not exactly for my absence. I never thought I wouldn't go back, no matter how much I knew from the beginning that staying away from home is always unpredictable. The universe is still full of what I don't know, what we don't know.

Something might save me from my martyrdom. Giving me life or taking away what's left of it. I don't fear too much anymore. My future is cloudy, my present is all I have.

 

Lieutenant Colonel Kim Woojin, designated astronaut for the Stay 4419 mission, hanging up. "

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lost between thoughts and with so much attention in his "new discovery", it was natural that Woojin found something soon.

 

 

 

 

 

"Logbook, March fifteenth, two thousand and seventy-eight, day 73."

 

Woojin lifted his head in his arms folded across the table, tilting to the side and narrowing his eyes behind the lenses of his reading glasses. He seeming to recount the scratched traces on the hanging sheet with a mere adhesive tape, checking his own counts. Although they were automatically made in his head every day. If he didn't have a clock working somewhere in the ship, he would continue with his notion of time bewildered. As if it didn't always seem like night there.

The lights on didn't mean too much. Marked by terrestrial schedule, it shouldn't have passed of seven o'clock in the morning, the sun should be rising there much more beautiful than the little that the astronaut was able to see from the cameras outside the ship - since going personally required much more than Woojin was willing to give.

It had been more than a century since the first time the man had stepped on the moon and Woojin, during his first walk on the lunar soil, hadn't yet found the United States flag that was supposed to be there - even if in a bad state due to the conditions of the environment, it was always replaced by the inflated ego of the great power for which he worked. That place had been more beautiful before, in his honest opinion. Woojin still couldn't stay too long on the dark side of the moon; despite the changes, the human body hadn't exactly matched the technology that surrounded them on the present. Part of the satellite was no longer a surprise and nothing there was exactly new either. Perhaps the fact that the Earth and her colony (Mars) have made that place a deposit of space garbage consciously or not. Woojin was supposed to be there to promote the adaptation of the moon to the possible colonization of mankind - he hated the term, but it was somehow adequate.

 

"Why do you all want so much to come here?" He asked himself in the silence, for a moment forgetting that his voice was being recorded by the still-functional equipment of the ship. He sighed, leaning his back against the sit in front of the control panel.

 

All the missions so far had failed - and it had been so long since humans desperately tried to leave Earth, increasingly difficult to be inhabited by the error of their own kind. Millions and millions of mistakes that cost him the comfort of his home and now forced them to walk through the system seeking shelter. The moon and Mars were only convenient, they were the closest at last; but they were still far from fully understood regardless of the path they walked. They weren't yet aware of other lives in the galaxy, even though their considered advances.

Woojin believed that they didn't have so much time to be testing methods to leave the home planet.

Mars, though it had gone further and still required a lot of effort to become truly habitable - and not even for a long time - was still the scientist's favorite since the 1960s, long before humanity set foot on the moon. The planet was the closest they had to Earth (even in its present state, which they considered deplorable) making the moon become a second option plausible, but with complications more difficult to be solved although it continued with high morale among the scientists. And there was Woojin, with his notes scattered in the ship's cabin, all already transmitted in the first logbooks. With supplies and limited capabilities, it seemed that all the data collected would remain with him for a while. Not as a secret, just as a useless way of knowing for his next Terrestrial years.

He tapped his fingers on the table, looking back at the recording time, a little too long and covered in static silence. Was there anything else to be said? By his accounts, he had been there for a little over two months now - for some reason without having committed any atrocity against himself when the place where he was no longer appears to try to expel him as an intruder virus in an immune system. He couldn't take the credits from the universe in wanting to suffocate him, from another point of view he would wish the same if he maintained the consciousness of how much the advance of the humanity cost to that galaxy in general. Woojin had already questioned every kind of human topic he could remember, Without having anyone to argue with if wasn't with himself through all those notes. It was like twirling around trying to bite his own tail.

Woojin knew he was going through the worst phase before his death. He was trained to deal with loneliness, but the side effects were only being postponed, not necessarily excluded. He was stressed, anxious. His sleep was visibly affected, and hallucinations were recurrent - and he only noticed them when they were too ridiculous to be real; but sometimes it would take hours or days before he would let go of the feeling of being watched or surrounded by unknown creatures. Given the current circumstances, he couldn't suspend that belief altogether. His notes may have stopped making sense in the first 100 hours.

However, his sanity was still at a considerable level of confidence. That is to say, although he had accumulated crisis episodes, he was sometimes able to bypass them by inventing mathematical problems and solving them, thus keeping the brain busy enough to decide not to erode him faster than would make without the least effort of his part. It wasn't as if the universe had left for him much more than himself.

Concluding that his subjects had been limited at that moment, Woojin only ended the recording without even giving up the standard speech about his patent and his mission before he hung up. Already had a few days that he thought this detail wasn't important, many weren't. He stood up, stretching his arms and contracting his muscles with more difficulty each day. Although he was obliged to maintain his exercise routine, he was gradually deteriorating. He didn't even know if it was age or the moon. None of them would have much importance in a while.

He walked to the other side of the cabin, checking the images the ship's cameras could get from Earth - it was a strange habit to look at the planet every day as if it were just a key chain, although he knew how big it was and how little he felt close to that information. No suspicions, just a certainty that in that vastness he was nothing.

Perhaps for humanity, in general, he still wasn't.

 

 

~~

 

 

He narrowed his eyes, taking due care as he passed the blade of the razor over his jaw, hardening it by reflection. His eyes learned not to fix themselves more than necessary on his own image and Woojin ended up doing everything with attention in his own hands. With technological advances and the discovery of water on the surface of the moon, maintaining the hygiene wasn't exactly a problem - but he was still adept at older manners and only used the water provided by the natural satellite when he truly needed. In short, just for the bath, leaving the wet towels within reach when he decided to shave. Besides, it wasn't like the water could be ingested. Yet.

He tried not to think of the fact that he wouldn't be alive to see humanity get even close to it. By his knowing, Woojin would have enough resistance for a year and what limited that goal was simply the resources. He had enough for another two months if he could save as much as possible - and, ignoring what the moon already did alone, this made him even weaker and more likely to die before that very prediction. He was getting tense again. He took both cooler hands to his shoulders and took a deep breath. Maybe he should take a walk, which he didn't make for considerable weeks simply because he considered that he had already been able to explore everything around him with the least technology left over from his ship.

He walked to the control panel, uninterested in - for now - touch the space suit neatly placed near his bed. The space there was still relatively small, even though only one person wouldn't need to occupy more than necessary, anyway. Woojin at least thanked for not having developed any claustrophobia until that moment. He pulled the chair, taking up space in front of the camera and detectors, thinking about if he should or not to resume the logbook stopped two days ago. The last one closed with just one not-very-optimistic statement on his part. His mind was clearer to know that it hadn't been a good message, no matter if no one would listen.

He folded his arms across the table, following his eyes for the near-zero motion of the lunar soil or anything in it - which wasn't a small number of things, but it definitely seemed compared to what was still circulating in the Earth's orbit. Until they arrived at the "clean" technology used on that trip, humanity had thrown too much debris into space that would eventually cause problems (and it did). From the almost complete blocking of the atmosphere to the return of one or other of those objects in high speed, crashing with irreparable damage when they reached occupied points of the planet. Woojin was on some of the cleaning missions, which made him ready to join that one for the moon alone. A bad idea, but not enough when he remembered he could have taken someone with him. Someone else with family, friends.

The universe was vast enough for him to try to deduce what was going through the darkness beyond the atmosphere. For some reason, Woojin had never seen stars shining around as he could clearly see from Earth - or at least he had never really stopped to try to notice them, or the camera just didn't catch the brightness of them for being too far off, normally. It had never been a priority; though there might be some document somewhere that would explain exactly what his absent head of a certain level of rationality could now formulate. He had the impression that his bright days on earth weren't worth much in the face of so much he didn't know yet.

And neither would.

He began to rethink whether it would be a good idea to get out of his safest environment to the present circumstances, but was cut short before coming to a precise conclusion as he realized a quick rigid figure crossing his ship's cameras. As far as Woojin knew, it might be more space junk than he had found there at his arrival - which was not good news under any circumstances - or any other thing being tossed into the lunar atmosphere by space itself. In one way or another, negative news came even so that he expected none at all.

Getting out now was no longer exactly an option - and not an obligation - but a drop of curiosity in an almost dry sea of any worry about future consequences. It wasn't as if he had much more to lose than a few days for spending basic resources or life, in case something went very wrong. He didn't believe in the second fact, simply because he was empowered not to make mistakes in the process of putting on his special clothes or leaving the ship. Although he hadn't done it for weeks, he was able to reproduce that kind of activity in the automatic, and soon afterward Woojin was back on the lunar surface as if it were the first time.

The ship's silence made him less irritable than hearing his own breathing and being aware of his own heartbeat with each step that sounded lighter than he remembered. He looked around, unable to notice even the attempt to build the first lunar base more than twenty years ago, which consisted of more garbage produced by humanity in a point in space where it shouldn't be. Woojin knew in what part of the moon he had stopped and by his accounts was far from most of the outbreaks where they began the exploration. One more reason why the communication problem hadn't been resolved yet.

He crossed the front of the ship, trying to remember which side he had exactly followed the movement on the screen and easily guessed that he was walking the wrong way - but only came to realize after just putting x with y. He turned around, a little slower than his patience allowed, narrowing his eyes even more as if that would help something. The fact that the costume display was half-matte didn't help much and Woojin was being guided completely by the more superficial commands.

It would also explain why his foot had found something and announced his entire body only after an unbalanced one held by the lack of gravity. It didn't look as thin or hard as metal, though it could not be certain and still sounded solid. He lowered himself as much as he could, his open hands circling the surface as the suit itself did the work of analyzing what it was that he felt. When it seemed safe - though he still didn't know what it was, but definitely _wasn't alive_ according to human precedence - he decided to carry whatever it was to the ship and perhaps study better.

He concluded, a little later, that it would be better if human technology had developed enough for Woojin to have to deal with it before bringing it to his only safe haven.

 

 

~~

 

 

Not that something bad had happened, initially it had only been a shock and a certain sense of discomfort. Not from what he saw directly, but from what made him feel added to all the present circumstances.

Woojin hadn't completely undressed his special clothing when he paused to examine what he had in hand - not literally this time. His stomach was heavy and his head spinning, luckily he hadn't eaten more than what was really needed earlier that day. He wondered if he was finally going crazy, but hoped his sanity would be sincerely tougher.

The astronaut knew that it wasn't alive. At least the technology he'd been carrying had made it clear that there was nothing but metal, threads, and things he didn't exactly recognize behind that carcass so ... Human. _Disturbingly human._

The conception of androids wasn't new to anyone who actually knew how much the idea of artificial intelligence had evolved over the years. Once something was discovered in that field it was quickly developed, possibly much faster than even the human's ability to reproduce - until months ago Woojin would have answers like that with indescribable ease, but now he could only look in a neutral way to the body in front of him. A human-not-human body. Human more humane, taking into account that the definition of humanity seemed a little foggy for him in the present.

He ran his gloved hand through his hair, given the back with a little apprehension of _that thing_ , so that he could get rid of the space suit and had more ability to move inside the ship - automatically giving a better check on what he had brought with him in a completely impulsive act. Well, at least there were no more radioactive elements in it than the galaxy space already possessed by itself. He dragged the body a little further in, dropping it into one of the chairs next to the command desk in the cabin. He sat down, tired only because of that little effort. He would die even earlier at that rhythm.

 

"There was nothing about it in the reports that I read." He concluded with himself, a habit he had acquired with all the forced solitude he had been in the last month. Woojin needed to hear his own voice before starting to think that he was deaf or mute. He leaned toward the "off" android, visually searching for any relevant information.

 

Woojin would find it rather ironic if one of the competitors of the company he worked for had sent an android to the moon when a human was already there - though he was quite certain that he was already being forgotten at that point. All around that special race, this time with the intention of colonizing the moon first - something that had been interrupted several times, but still going well with Mars, contrary to popular opinion - it wasn't uncommon to commit that kind of attitude, without the astronaut considering a lack of ethics or morals. They were controversial terms, anyway. No one ever specified the rules of a "war". Even more technological.

Lost between thoughts and with so much attention in his "new discovery", it was natural that Woojin found something soon. It was so obvious now that he had seen it, even if he didn't understand. He took the android hand carefully, turning the palm up. It had part of a serial number, seemingly worn, but still making visible the first four symbols.

 

_CB – 97._

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, today was such a bad day. I probably made a horrible note in my assessment yesterday and I finished the chapter because I've just been thinking about it for the past several days. It may not be in the best grammar right now and I spent the last few hours translating, so I'll check it out better later.
> 
> Problems aside, I spent hours and hours studying some things related to astronomy (which I shouldn't because I'm a student of philosophy) and I hope I've passed some basic things through this chapter. Don't be disappointed with me because of my self-taught English and the one who does things hot-headed, I'm still trying my best. I want to do the best for y'all, and even though I've been writing stories for ten years now, I'm just trying to tell them in another language recently. Probably my way of writing in Portuguese needs to be adapted gradually to English, for now, I'm in the testing phase.
> 
> Anyway, leave your comments! If something is wrong, correct me or make a criticism (constructive, please). Do your theories and give me some ideas. I'm approachable, I swear. 
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy reading as much I have fun writing! <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fortunately, the astronaut was more than accustomed to situations that were upsetting his stomach.
> 
> But not much with what could hit directly on his psychological. Or at least not at that point of the suicidal journey he'd gotten himself into.

 

 

 

 

 

 **W** oojin should have been there for a few hours, but without really moving his attention from the android or approaching him much more than necessary; although if at all that time just observing, Woojin hadn't noticed any trace of him showing real danger being in a vegetative state, meaning that he could turn him upside down without risks. Yet, his curiosity was no more than his ridiculous fear of the unknown. Something completely natural, considering that he had only been proving to himself that he knew far less than he did when he left Earth for that type of mission at-the-time-not-considered-suicidal.

As advanced as the earthly technology could be, Woojin couldn't remember ever having something like that. Nothing so disturbingly human, to the point of the astronaut's imagination being able to recreate in all that silence the noise of a breath that wasn't his; but the space suit had scanned every part of that mechanized body and nothing indicated the presence of a lung there. Or the need for one. If it hadn't been for the little of what remained of his logic, he would have succumbed to the mere idea that that thing was alive. Or minimally functional.

He settled his back on the chair, leaning forward, but still keeping his arms folded against his chest in unconscious defense. It was ridiculous. His first hypothesis hadn't been dismissed, but the more he thought about it, the more incoherent his argument was. No technology was capable of creating such perfect eyelashes and so erroneously human traits. Returning to the previous dilemma. Woojin hadn't touched the android with bare hands, didn't know the texture of what covered him to be able to tell just how real it really was for someone apparently synthetic. Not even wax dolls had that size in details.

It took him a few minutes longer to finally rise and shrink the space that limited his hands to reach it. Initially, Woojin left his fingers intertwined with each other on his back and turned his trunk back toward the android. His heart pounded in his ears, extremely fast, desperately anxious. It wasn't an unusual feeling, but at least that time he understood from where the motive came from. As much as the head was lowered, Woojin could see from above a minimum movement of the lashes that he has been observing for so long before.

He moved away in reflex, but not so much. If he took another step back, his confidence will disappear along with what remained of his self-control. Just to don't freak out or throw his new research object off the ship for anything. It took him some time to breathe normally, though he didn't identify lungs on the android, with the pain being able to remind him that at least his own lungs were there, struggling to keep to him alive. Automatically.

Woojin stepped back to the other, finally taking the courage to extend the right hand and, with his folded forefinger, lift the android's head by his chin, watching it fall backward in the maximum movement that had caused a disturbance in the air within the last possible two hours. His eyelids were raised, but nothing had changed; it still looked like some sort of childlike doll whose eye movement accompanied that of the head. Woojin waited, but nothing really happened.

 

"What the hell are you?" He asked quietly, still not really getting anywhere that made him answer his own question accurately. The astronaut had no idea about what to think, having already dismissed the competition in the space market when they were all simply egocentric enough to make any visible logo; and the android had nothing printed out anywhere that wasn't the code in his hand. He even had no idea what CB-97 meant, but it seemed irrelevant for now.

 

He didn't like to have no answers, especially when they defined how Woojin could continue to feed a silly anxiety to live. It shouldn't be his priority when everything was already lost and only something unusual enough to be unbelievable would be able to change his perspective - like a random android on the moon, but for now, he was still too catatonic to figure out what direction things had taken. Finally, Woojin took a deep breath, putting his whole palm on the blank face of his strange company.

It was more seconds than all the others lost in observation until that moment. Moving his fingertips, he could feel every pore, every rough, soft part he would normally find in any human. It frightened him as much as, perhaps, made him fascinated and curious. He was ready to embrace the insanity of that moment when he allowed his face close to the android's and took a more intense look at his completely empty but open eyes, and almost convincing to pass on the conviction that there was some consciousness there.

In that closeness, Woojin might well understand that above his fear there was a comforting familiarity in the present circumstance - and as much as he knew there was no real possibility, the hand opposite that on the face of the android could feel, directly against his chest, something pulsing underneath the material he didn't know and the metals mostly denied by his suit before. Although visually it was an inanimate body, he couldn't stop the strangely feeling of welcome in that situation; where even maintaining a considerable distance, which also facilitated if he needed to hurry away, Woojin couldn't really pull back now that he had passed the sensory line.

It was like touching a human, however hard his face was and how he didn't possess exactly the same oiliness as his own, by way of example. Still, Woojin didn't have many words in his vocabulary to describe exactly the feeling he felt if he decided to look at everything from another perspective, perhaps a more neutral than paranoid in some way. He slid his fingertips along the neck of the android, skirting what in the human body Woojin thought would be the curves of the trachea. He passed the so-called Adam's apple and stopped at the height of the clavicle marked by the fabric that covered the rest of the body - except for the hands.

He took his hands off and another step back. Woojin needed to do something with the information he had, but he didn't know exactly what. Since he couldn't say how and where that thing had come from, there was no way to be precise in any information - especially if all he had was basically all he could _feel_. Nowadays the astronaut was far from relying on his own senses, and with every passing second, he also began to question whether he could also rely on the reality built by a solitary brain and about to cross that sure line of sanity.

In short, Woojin couldn't think so clearly to take action, and all he did was match his body's own reflexes on what his legs again demanded of him to sit down. He folded his arms against his chest, feeling a strange shiver rise up his spine before he slid his hips forward and tossed his head back, eyes again on the ship's ceiling as he paused to analyze his own reactions - too calm for someone who was dealing with something outside his comfort zone, he knew that, but he also knew how close the boundary was all the time and his fear was no longer exactly a feeling he couldn't handle. Above self-control, Woojin felt numb.

He turned to the command desk, opening all the files in which he could get access from where he was. Among protocols and studies of their own, there was nothing to indicate a minimally "extraterrestrial" detail. Basically, Woojin had found nothing on the moon in his stay that meant activity over human. As he typed in the automatic, he also felt his hands tremble as a late effect of all the emotional pressure placed on himself in the last minutes. He took a deep breath, knowing he needed a minimally professional stance.

Perhaps it was an appropriate time to retake the habit of the logbooks.

 

 

~~

 

 

"Logbook, Seventeen of March, Two thousand and seventy-eight, day 75."

 

He looked at the calendar cautiously, not knowing anymore how much time had actually passed since he'd found the body of the android. He had the impression that it was much more than he was actually counting, although he immediately realized that it wouldn't make so much difference announcing date, year, and day in his recordings when his time-space view seemed so out of place. It was very likely that he was wrong, Woojin knew that off the planet something distorted that topic.

He tapped his fingers on the table and stood up, aware of his not so unusual static silence after the twentieth recording. By the time he had begun to lose hope, the first impact had been directly caused to his logbooks. Most of it was long silences or the sometimes meaningless words that Woojin didn't remember have said, not even when he listened to all the files again. In them, his voice seemed to belong to anything but his owner.

 

"Unknown object found outside the ship at ... seven in the morning?" He hated sounding uncertain, but he wasn't equally seeking to correct himself. Schedules on the moon were irrelevant if he was only able to visualize one side of it constantly, with no transition for day to night. "It has a human physiognomy, but there are no traces of living organisms." Or at least, that was what his space suit had said. Woojin didn't know if he should believe in the same technology that had trapped him there. "A lot of his composition is made of assorted metals, cables and ... Something." Woojin sighed. He was really losing it. He knew the number of possible teachings during his training season that he should be breaking by sounding so casual to a document.

 

The astronaut picked up the gloves on the dashboard that he abandoned some time ago, wearing them only because he knew it would be uncomfortable for him to touch all the time on what wasn't skin, but it looked like so much. He had the impression that it was also easily removable and deteriorating if he left something as strange as his body itself touching the android. He was trying to be careful above all else. He approached and held his breath, perhaps unconsciously and completely tense, Woojin put one arm around the other's trunk, pulling it forward a little so that the weight of the latter fell on him almost like a dense rag doll. With the opposite hand on his back, he scanned not so blindly for any visible damage, stopping when he felt something sharp crawling through the material that prevented direct contact with his fingerprints.

And as if it were possible, Woojin got even more nervous.

 

" _It's no big deal_." He whispered to himself, trying to keep his confidence in what he was doing. He lifted his body a little, leaving the android leaning against his chest as he searched for exactly what he'd touched. His lungs ached.

 

Why did he always need to remind himself that breathing was vital?

 

"Oh!" Woojin let out all the air he held in a single breath when his eyes finally found what luckily had not torn his finger and caused a bruise with immense possibilities of making him lose his hand as a whole. Especially when he didn't know what he was dealing with so he couldn't not worry about it.

 

He knelt, bringing the android's trunk up a little above his shoulder so that he could better visualize the cut on his back - that the longer and closer Woojin looked, the more uncomfortable he got about the sight he had. It looked deep so that he could see the number of wires much more clearly now; only confirming what his costume had "translated" before. Whatever had turned off the android, it didn't really seem to have broken anything - he was obviously doing a shallow analysis - but Woojin wasn't sure if the carcass could be recovered at that point. Humans "regenerated," so that their cell multiplied to close any bruises, something that clearly didn't happen to anything that wasn't organically alive.

Whatever had practically opened the back of the android, Woojin could say that he was sharp enough, since the blow was unique and seemed to have cut the metal like a hot knife into a piece of plastic. The edges were twisted and mingled with what he still thought to be something synthetic and close to representing human skin. Fortunately, the astronaut was more than accustomed to situations that were upsetting his stomach.

But not much with what could hit directly on his psychological. Or at least not at that point of the suicidal journey he'd gotten himself into.

 

"Shit," Woojin cursed as he felt something move more precisely beneath where one of his hands was resting on the back of the android, analyzing it without touching the open cut again. Taking up back a little of his own balance, hampered by the other's weight and his position, he could see clearly whatever was moving so easily there. The discomfort might have arisen from that classic uncanny valley; at the same time that he knew that it wasn't the same situation, familiarity made Woojin feel as if it were under his own skin, between his own bones.

 

He didn't know how long he kept his eyes on the same spot, on the corroded edges of the cut, before the movement of something bright and green made him have the emergency of retreating - but he didn't even move. He waited for the vision to fit in and he could see what was happening. Whatever it was, it seemed to simply eat the android from inside, explaining exactly why although in good condition he was completely turned off. By association, it was literally a parasite.

Woojin had nothing on hand at that moment. Nothing but their own. He did bring nothing in space travel more than necessary, which meant that there was nothing with which he could improvise and take it directly. Apparently, however, it wasn't as if the machine parasite could do harm to himself as an organic subject - but he was sure it could and would corrode every part of ship if he made the mistake of simply leaving it there. He had the impression that it would swallow too fast all that was inside the android, and soon it would go to the first piece of metal alloy it could see from the front.

So he didn't want to think too much about consequences when he was careful and brushed his thumb and forefinger into the metal slit. Between threads still intact and what Woojin considered part of the structure, with some effort he managed to reach that which made volume under the synthetic skin. He reluctantly pulled it out the parasite, who clung to everything it saw and struggled with their sharp metal claws wanting to cut anything it touched. Even the astronaut himself. Woojin had been fortunate enough to catch it by a blind spot, apparently.

 

" _What the hell_." He murmured softly, his eyes focused on the fluorescent green dots of the parasite. It was, but it wasn't made of a material similar to the android. It was matte and lighter, even if it made no difference in the size.

 

Woojin knew he shouldn't have dragged anything into the only safe place he had now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The news is: maybe the government of my country will cut the funds directed to my graduation in college, which will make my course basically disqualified professionally since basically (without a second graduation, at least) the only exits to the course is to teach or engage with research. But if the government doesn't release money for research, we have to take money out of our own pockets and researcher in that country starves to death. Like any of the area. 
> 
> Sounds like a political complaint? Yeah, a little, but it's not the focus. The point is that somewhere in the closer future my graduation will no longer exist in my country and I may need to change course. But while I'm still studying philosophy, know that I'm going to delay the fanfic because I have a million academic texts and methodology work to do.
> 
> I even stopped making one today to finish this chapter. I'm super excited about all my stories and already creating new plots and maybe eventually post.
> 
> If you see errors in my English or in coherence I swear that I tried to correct the maximum and reread 4 times to be sure. But I didn't sleep last night and I intend to stay awake this night again with three hours of sleep. It is difficult to demand concentration like this, soorry.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it, any constructive criticism and comment are welcome. Talk to me, I would like to hear your opinion!<3


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Try to take a deep breath, it usually works on humans."

 

 

 

 

 

 **H** e pressed one finger against his temple, hard enough that the intention was to transfer the pain from one point to another - which was a stupid idea and clearly only made his headache worse when he pulled his hand away from his face and freed the same pressure. His head was empty, but at the same time full of things he couldn't name. Varied feelings, not very positive, negative, neutral. Perhaps it was this confusion that he might consider silence. Nothing led anywhere, his questions sounded vague and the answers even more superficial. As if he just wanted a simple solution to a complex situation - though for some reason he couldn't really see it as the seven-headed monster it was. From being away from home without being able to return to being accompanied by the fine line that marked his life and death.

He moved his hand just a little lower, supporting his chin as he closed his fingers, keeping his elbow on his left thigh. Holding the gaze on the captured parasite for so long was beginning to make strange associations to the most functional points in his brain - as if it were capable of shape-shifting or as if his eyes simply could no longer discern the contour lines of _that thing._ However, if he lowered his eyelids for a few seconds, Woojin would be able to clearly see the neon-green dots, separated from each other by a distance less than the thickness of his thinnest finger, as if they were embedded in his soul and absorbing each other feeling of him.

That was ridiculous. Again he was losing track of time, already badly damaged by the distance it was from his ordinary Gregorian calendar - which was going on for longer than expected. He could have been there a few seconds, several minutes or countless hours. Everything was still the same around him, nothing moved beyond himself in purely automatic reflexes. Perhaps at some point his brain also began to go through the same process, emptying whatever filled it to make room for concentration on nothingness. If Woojin didn't move, that thing didn't either.

At first, believing that he wouldn't end in a vacuum had been a very viable option - as an impression confirmed by the simple fact that such a parasite didn't seem very interested in devouring the piece of paper on which it dropped their weight of miserly milligrams. Judging out of bases, obviously. When Woojin decided to pass it to the first plastic container found, his disposition had also shown no change, confirming what he had been shaping for a few minutes. This little being (though it strengthened certain questions about considering that intelligence a way of life) didn't feed on its degradable offerings. At least in certain circumstances. As if its sole purpose were already well specified, the strange mechanical apparatus, when far from performing their function, remained motionless, mirroring the condition of the analyzing astronaut.

Or maybe Woojin was only giving way again to his semi-insanity, seeing reciprocity in what he even seemed to be aware of. He had to accept that it was just an automated creature with a single purpose interrupted by his curiosity - above any scientific impulse. He had no problem admitting that he was no longer acting with intellectual and academic interests. There was no one to judge him.

Right?

Out of reflex, he turned his head toward his third company, though it seemed much more worthwhile to start a conversation with than the unidentified pseudo insect. For the sake of convenience, Woojin could name them both that worked better than a code or that didn't make him need to address them as "this" or "that." During the time he handled the parasite, he saw nothing like what he had already studied, nothing that even fit the records he carried with him and which he had no longer resorted to when all he was used to seeing was moon dust. He didn't even consider himself creative to fit a dream or induced coma. It was, in fact, quite strange and incited his curiosity as much as that negative anxiety, both vying for space in his subconscious to finish chewing him inside and the madness opening up unnoticed space.

Woojin wanted someone to ask what the next step was. Maybe he should study that thing - he would keep addressing the parasite in a neutral way, as he still had moral issues that had no place to discuss if no one else was involved - or try to rewire the android that haunted the space relatively close to his control desk. Until he had the courage to move on with either option, anything there was a dead weight. Without reluctance and eagerness to get rid of the container in which it was held, the pseudo insect was useless as long as the android was no more than a doorstop or a stuffed animal-like companion.

He wouldn't end the day - or he gives it finished - if he didn't solve one of the problems. Researching the parasite would take a long time, as he would have to start from scratch and especially figure out how he should stop the unbridled thrust of digesting every inch of your ship. Reviving android, on the other hand, seemed less complex. The insertion of that metal rodent seemed to have been fairly recent to cause irreversible damage, so Woojin could easily reconnect some cables and try to get extra help; but he wasn't ignoring the precious detail that if something happened, they would both still have an undisputed advantage over that jumble of reduced body mass and relatively fragile bones that he had become.

They were many sides of the coin, but Woojin had already begun to make a habit of the easier and faster the better; which in no way applied to his stay in space, and even if it was minimally wise to take his time on what would take most of him - blindly hoping someone would save him in the process - he couldn't find in himself much strength to push for more than a possible few hours. So he stood up, already seeking to expend the energies of the only meal of the day in grabbing the toolbox and initiating necessary adjustments.

If it went wrong he could still turn it off. He hoped.

 

 

~~

 

 

Woojin knew that sweating in the present circumstances wasn't a good sign - it meant that he was losing the little water he had in his body and that beyond all the temperature inside the ship was beginning to be unregulated. Or, at best, he was just nervous. Still, it didn't sound at all pleasing to the ears of those who were fully aware of what each of their attitudes entailed, even though much of their current misadventures were made through practical discoveries and far beyond theoretical resolutions.

He could feel his skin warmer and the palms inside the rubber gloves much wetter than recommended for what he was doing. He knew that by the time he was in space, his body temperature tended to rise as immunity plummeted and perhaps he shouldn't but was accustomed to living under the possibility of hallucinations and convulsions if it went beyond his control. He rose, taking a deep, controlled breath, the gross root of his hair and his body biased with slight spasms. He hadn't made so much progress, but it was enough. He had removed the distorted metal sides in the android cut, plus some cable reassembly, though it wasn't all that had been reconnected yet.

Woojin knew his limits. Or at least some of his natural instincts decided to take control of the situation from time to time, preventing him from things that would go directly against his physical, moral, civic and psychological integrity. Stopping seemed appropriate when he knew his body was guided by his subconscious, long before any other feelings could be carried to the surface. Looking shallowly, his calm appearance didn't match the wall the astronaut mentally raised with each inhale, preventing the stranger's anxiety and panic from spilling out like an avalanche.

His footsteps had no sound, and nothing exactly emitted anything, but there was a strange and uncomfortable signal from nowhere, crunching through ear to ear. Woojin wanted to get this over with — ignoring the fact that, in short, it was just the beginning. It was a mixture of feelings conducive to wreaking havoc, reducing the time he had, bringing him to the brink of that abyss that at one point or another came back to him. He needed to calm down or nothing would be done.

What did he have to lose anyway? Machines had done worse, after all, it was precisely because of their blind reliance on uncontrolled technologies that all they had now was a potential risk to advance whatever was anticipated for their future - dense word, which curled the tongue and choked him with its meaning.

Woojin walked a few more velvety steps through the interior of the ship, sitting for a few seconds on the uncomfortable bed, still feeling exactly as if he was standing for hours. On the wall, clinging to a worn tape, he allowed himself for a few seconds to admire the only portrait he would have of a reality that sounded fanciful at the moment. Whether Woojin had a relatively normal life was hard to say. It wasn't over yet, but it definitely didn't look much like what he remembered from routine on earth. The basics were there, but for a limited time - not that everything on the planet wasn't equally scarce and divided between more people than himself and his shadow.

He removed his gloves, running his wet hand through his pants, then slowly moved his fingers. The bones were creaking, and slowly, he noted that the mark of where his wedding ring should have been was already gone. A fresh start wasn't exactly the expression he would give to this situation, especially when he was much more dealing with the idea of surviving than actually trying to live life as he was always told to do. It was strange that he no longer had the social pressure of dozens of things - like getting married, having children, and a strong, stable career. Woojin was relatively successful in the social eyes of humanity, but he didn't think any of this would be worth it to reclaim his memory. He was just someone else inside a bubble whose spread of its burst was low resolution.

Again Woojin redirected his attention to the android, sitting on the floor like a rag doll, his trunk bent over his legs and the wavy strands of hair thrown over his cold eyes. There was only one step left to complete the transition from what he knew to something relatively new - the concept was the same, but in practice Woojin never felt safe being responsible for such technology at hand. Especially if it had no origin or if it seemed to surpass everything he knew, which was no small feat. Woojin came from a mechanized generation, where manual labor had been replaced and all that was left for mankind had been to wonder what could really be done when there was nothing left to do. Perhaps having begun to think earlier wouldn't have led them to high unemployment numbers, so much aggression to the environment, and the desperate need for a new system, since capitalism had clearly failed in important ways.

He sometimes wondered if they could survive elsewhere with less than anything they had achieved over unhealthy or even inhuman attitudes - but he knew the answer was yes since humanity was a hard-to-kill parasite, well able to reproduce with little. Weren't they doing this on Mars and didn't they intend to do this on this mission? Woojin would like that a return to the moon after his failure to be postponed, but he knew they had no time; and for just a strange conception, it was something they had been fleeing from forever.

And in space, time was counted in different ways. Woojin felt as if years had passed, probably when he had given up counting for more than a hobby, it couldn't be that much. Faced with such a volatile idea, he deduced that he was only making more than he always thought he was losing. Giving that “cool down” break was his way of putting off the idea of death again. More likely not so aware that that was exactly why he was taking so long to put an end to that story.

The truth was that Woojin wasn't ready as he thought he was. It was desperate to think that a second after turning on the android could be signing his death certificate, it was impossible to fight a machine regardless of what he was done. Woojin was organic, flesh, blood, muscle and bone. Literally, everything could kill him and yet he had never been a recurring thought until he got to the present situation. He felt so small and insignificant.

No, it wasn't the time. He couldn't be going through a ridiculous panic attack just when he had to keep his head in place.

Woojin was unable to feel his own face, his hands tingled empty, and the sensation was that the walls were closing around him. Even with his feet on the ground, it was as if he were suspended in the air, struggling unconsciously to cling to anything that made sense in the face of the loss of reality. His heart rate seemed to be present throughout his body, beating behind his knees, his neck, his ears, terrifyingly strong in his chest area. He felt overwhelmed by feelings he had been trying to control for so long. With the intensity of a storm wave crashing to shore with extremely loud sounds. And everything was too noisy. His thoughts, his reactions, the future, and the past. The gift didn't seem to be there.

Everything was too much and Woojin was too little. A grain of rice, a chill in the belly. Temporary, without high expectations.

 

" _Try to take a deep breath_ ."

 

Woojin didn't recognize his own voice. For a moment he tried to focus on the movements of his own mouth, not what his ear caught. Hee tasted salty tears between pressed lips. Of course, there was no identification in what wasn't his own.

 

" _It usually works on humans._ "

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, six months is too long, but I warned it would take a while to update.   
> But now I'm back and I solved the problem I had with this chapter, I just needed to cool my head about certain things - and it's pretty cool now.  
> There may be errors, you already know, and I will come back here to reread and correct if I find any. Until then, feel free to correct me, to comment and criticize as long as it is constructive.
> 
> Thank you for reading this far <3


	5. Unnecessary clarification note

 

 

Hello, dear readers  
  
I don't really know how many people will read and follow this up, I don't even know if I should really come here to talk about this particular subject, but I feel like I should give my opinion on the news we received today.

All my ongoing stories, or the ones I have planned, have Woojin as the protagonist. Woojin is someone I've seen growing up inside Stray Kids, growing up with me, since we're the same age, in ways that make me proud of what he has become. An example for so many, a person with a good heart, a voice that soothes and relax. I don't mean to stop writing with him, creating stories that keep his name alive within the fandom. I don't want to erase what he helped build and every new stay that comes along, I make a point of showing the best of the moments he had with us.

I will not stop doing what I do. This story will continue and I will still do many others extolling what he means to me (even though I may not know how to represent 1/10 of what he is and sometimes use his name to make way for unjust behavior). Although I don't do an exact representation of him, I leave here, for a while, what I have closest to a tribute to him and what he represented along his walk with us, stays, and stray kids. Woojin, our hero, our enchanted prince. His name is marked in the building of this group and in the path of each of us as writers. He left a little of him in everyone who knew him and it won't be me letting it go with his leaving.

I just wanted to point out that I support any decision he takes because I love him and always will. Even if he is not present, the love he has left will be sown and grown more and more. We are nine or none. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Here one of my most promising ideas and that I'm really afraid to start it and not finish. I've never written a sci-fi before, not in my native language or in another, but I'm trying. Wish me luck and be patient with the updates. This requires the most amount of study my time allows. ;D


End file.
